http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... sp1-flunks

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/19/2112253

http://itnews.com.au/News/72401,windows ... plain.aspx


The Vista debacle continues much as usual as far as I can see.

vista definitely pwns xp

alexb7873 knows his stuff, i think he should be reinstated as a user as im sure he was only having a laugh

I have to say my opninion of Vista has increased considerably since I turned off even more of the extra crap that comes with it. The first thing is the Search Indexer - great it seems, a program which indexes all your files to generate quicker searches. Well no, because it does it the whole time, even if you're using resource-hogging programs such as photo editors, the Search Indexer is still in the background working away and hogging valuable resources which the photo editor (for example) can't use. So I turned it off and got warnings about how my searches may be slower. Boo hoo. I rarely use the search facility anyway and whenever I do it says stuff hasn't been indexed anyway despite the Search Indexer indexing everything.

The second thing is Superfech. Again great on face value - a program which gets to know what programs you use often so automatically pre-loads them into the memory so they're quicker to open. This is only useful if you open / close things often (which I don't - I tend to open something and leave it open for hours while I'm using it). Also it means memory is used up by pre-opening these programs and if you often use resource-hogging programs it'll pre-load them and hog the memory!

Since turning these 2 buggers off, I have noticed a vast improvement in performance! So if your Vista is running a bit slow and you're a geek like me who often uses resource-hogging programs such as photo editors, do a search on Google for "search indexer" and "Superfetch" - although I'm not responsible if you mess anything up... Oh and something else is the "Return to Sleep Mode After a Certain Amount Of Time" facility - why would you want the computer to return to sleep if you get it to automatically wake up?

The standard way to get any sort of performance out of Vista is to turn off all the crap. Its still sucks big time compared to XP but it is an improvement.

But it does beg the question 'if you turn off all the bells and whistles whats the point of Vista in the first place?'

Exactly. What I do like about Vista is the improved Task Scheduler and improved Windows Explorer. I always thought it a bit odd that in XP, My Computer and Windows Explorer seemed to be seperate things, but they're more integrated with Vista and there are some handy features including easier transfer of files between folders. My laptop came with Vista when I bought it about a year ago and it serves me well (even better since I turned off Even More Vista Crap). I'm afraid I'm impatient with computers - if I click something I expect it to do it, not sit there thinking about it. Luckily I've got my laptop up to my speed now. High-end desktops should have no problems with Vista, but standard laptops struggle. I'm surprised they haven't launched "Windows Vista Laptop Edition" with all the advanced options removed altogether... I'm sure that'd be a good money spinner for them. I.e. re-launch XP with Vista's Windows Explorer and theme.

Haha. Microsoft have resurrected XP for the new netbook class of laptops (such as the Asus eeePC) as Vista just cannot compete with Linux (sleek and efficient) on low powered stuff. But they're virtually having to give it away to compete on price (Linux is free). Its that or lose this sector of the market altogether

I use XP and I think I'll continue to, even though my laptop is Vista Capable.

"Vista Compatible" (or capable) generally means "If you put Vista on here it'd be like dragging a donkey through a vat of treacle but it'd work". You're doing well in sticking with XP for now...

Aren't they bringing out a new OS next year. Windows Vienna or something?

It seems Vienna is a codename for it... like Longhorn was a codename for Vista at one stage.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

"Bill Veghte stated that Windows 7 will not have the kind of compatibility issues with Vista that Vista has with previous versions" - so in other words, Windows 7 is basically an XP version of Vista.

Its just been announced the release name for Windows 7 will be : Windows Disastra

Has anyone seen the new browser that Google have released - Google Chrome.

http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en-GB/features.html

Anyone plan on downloading it or just sticking with what you've got?

I'm generally a fan of everything Google does as it's really good.

But I don't think I'll be downloading their browser... I've just changed from IE to Firefox's latest version and looking at the features on Google's browser it doesn't seem too different from Firefox...

What exactly is the difference between IE and Firefox? I've seen it mentioned a lot over the net, but i've always used IE with generally no problems.

I find Internet Explorer incredibly slow... I've customised firefox slightly to make it extremely convenient for me and there's no clutter like there seems to be in Internet Explorer. It's a case of getting used to it I suppose - everyone will have their own preference. Not sure I'd be too keen on a Google Browser though...

I've just downloaded that Google Chrome and it's certianlly faster than IE7. Though I did wonder where the members section of the forum went and the quick post feature went, but I didn't realise it had logged me out at first.

Same here. As Firefox is "open source" (I think that's what it's called ) people have created add-ons for it and so on, most of which have been officially approved by Firefox (as far as I know) which makes it far more customisable than IE. Firefox seems much faster than IE in general too.

Exactly. On the subject of IE being slow, I'm using IE now (on a Vista computer)and it took a minute (a whole 60 seconds, and a bit more) just to get from google to the main dond.co.uk page. And then half a minute to get to the forum index.
I think that's...quite slow.

Other way round!

Is anyone using the new Windows 7?